The North American stage rally scene is back on the upswing in 2026, as the American Rally Association welcomes another manufacturer-supported effort to its ranks with a pair of entries from Mini for the full 2026 national season. The first event of the year is set to kick off this weekend with 108 miles of snowy stages with Michigan’s “up north” Sno Drift Rally. This marks Mini’s first factory effort rally team in North America, and a major step forward for the sport.
The BMW-owned compact car manufacturer has entered a JCW Countryman ALL4 model in the Limited 4WD category, taking the fight directly to Subaru’s Travis Pastrana-driven WRX and Lia Block’s Ford Fiesta Rally3 entry. The Mini will be piloted by Luis Perocarpi and stage notes will be read by co-driver Mark Wells. Perocarpi has been running the Mini factory-supported entry in SRO’s TC America class for a few seasons now, and this will be his first time at Sno Drift. This is a very competitive class, it should be said.
A second car, this one a JCW Hardtop 2-door (above) has been prepared for the Open 2WD class for driver Cristian Perocarpi and co-driver Carlos Schrunder. Also having driven for the Perocarpi family’s LAP Racing outfit in a variety of road course racing series, including TC America and Mustang Challenge, this appears to be Cristian’s first rally effort as well. In the O2WD class, Cristian will face off against largely home-built efforts from privateers. If he’s any good, and can keep the car between the ditches, this should be an easy win for Mini.
The vintage connection
Ever since Paddy Hopkirk took the victory laurels at the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally in a lilliputian Brit machine, stage rally has been indelibly inked on the Mini history books. That rally legacy was cemented when Timo Mäkinen won again in 1965 and Rauno Aaltonen repeated in 1967. The team also finished 1-2-3 at the 1966 running of the event, but the cars were controversially disqualified for having the wrong kind of headlights for the rulebook. After four wins on the trot, Mini was pretty much the undisputed champion of rally in the eyes of the public, and the car has ben dining out on that credit for 59 years.
Once the company was taken over by BMW and they started to produce a throwback-aesthetic modern car, the idea of pushing rally heritage a step further began to bubble to the top. Mini entered the Dakar rally five times between 2011 and 2015, once again winning the whole shooting match four times on the trot with two wins for Stephane Peterhansel, and one each for Nasser Al-Attiyah and Nani Roma.
There’s no telling whether Mini’s ARA championship efforts will still be around in five years, but if the trend continues and the company wins four ARA titles in five seasons, I’ll absolutely doff my cap to them. This currently seems like it’s a bit of a low-effort kind of effort for Mini, but if people pay attention, maybe the company will see a nice return on its investment and push for further rally action. You need it, I need it, rally in North America needs it. Thank you, Mini.
